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Sam Young, Eric Zawadzki

 Credits
Developer: Eric Zawadzki
Writers: Sam Young, Eric Zawadzki
Editor: Brian Johnson
Art: Luis Sanz, Alex Sheikman
Graphic Designer: Sam Young
Beta Readers: Bek Andrew Evans, Erica Mahoney, Kevin

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Rood

Special Thanks
A Storytellers Vault project doesn’t spring fully formed from

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one person. We call it “community content” for a reason! I’d
like to thank the following especially:
My patrons, who kept me honest and on-task throughout
this project and whose financial support helps me maintain
the high production values of my Storytellers Vault projects.
Beth Kinderman, my tabletop group’s forever GM, whose
example has taught me so many tricks useful to Storytellers
and who always ensures I strike the balance between social and
alone time that’s so essential to my mental health.

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The Chronicles of Darkness fan Discord, which has never
failed to inspire and help refine my ideas, and which has con-
nected me to many of those who helped me bring this supple-
ment to the Storytellers Vault.
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© 2026 PARADOX INTERACTIVE AB.

All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written consent of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except
for the purposes of reviews, and for blank character sheets, which may be reproduced for personal use
only. Vampire and Chronicles of Darkness are registered trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB (publ).
All rights reserved. Vampire: The Requiem, Changeling: The Lost, Werewolf: The Forsaken, Deviant: The
Renegades, Mummy: The Curse, Hunter: The Vigil, Mage: The Awakening, and Storytelling System are
trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB (publ). All rights reserved.

2 BLACK VANS
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Dig Up Her Bones 6 Vivisection 40
Character Creation 41
Introduction: Driver
How to Use This Book
Logistics
9
9
10
e Destabilizing Forces
Stability Alternatives
Character Advancement
Outside Motivation
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43
44
44
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Venue 10
Web of Pain 46
Troupe Size 11
System Overhaul Example: Trauma Gauges 46
Supplemental Tools 12
Chronicle Planning 14 Bro Hymn 50
Duration 14
Structure 15 Chapter Two: Engines 53
Chapters and Three-Act Structure 17
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Character Sheet 53
Five Lessons Learned 20 Backstory 53
Touchstones 57
Chapter One: Manual 9 Assets 58
Liabilities 59
Manual 23 Aspiration 60
Cadence 23 Touchstones 61
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Player Dice 23 Using Loyalty Touchstones 61

Other Dice Tricks 26 Using Conviction Touchstones 63
Storytelling System 29 Web of Pain 67
Extended Actions 29 Construction 67
Investigation 30 Action Economics 70
Action Scenes 32 Other Motivations 73
Social Maneuvering 35
Adding Systems 36 It's All My Fault 76
Example 1: Dehydration/Starvation 36
Example 2:
Chapter Three: Passengers 79
Training Animals and Manticores 37 Traits 80
Renegades 39 Basics 80

Table of Contents 3
 Merits 82 Archetypes 148
Deviant Template 85 Mage 149
100 Agents 99 Themes 149
Goons 111 Allies 149
Example Traits 111 Enemies 149
Web of Pain 149
I'm So Tired 116 Greater Form: Mage 149
Archetypes 154

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Chapter Four: Models 119
General Considerations 119 Mummy 155
Crossover 119 Themes 155
What This Isn’t 120 Allies 155

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General Systems 121 Enemies 155
Web of Pain 121 Web of Pain 155
Structure 123 Greater Form: Arisen 155
Archetypes 160
Beast 125
Themes 125 Promethean 161
Allies 125 Themes 161
Enemies 125 Allies 161
Web of Pain 125 Enemies 161
Greater Form: Beast 125 Web of Pain 161
Archetypes
Changeling
Themes
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129
130
130
Greater Form: Promethean
Archetypes
Vampire
Themes
161
166
167
167
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Allies 130
Enemies 130 Allies 167
Web of Pain 130 Enemies 167
Greater Form: Changeling 130 Web of Pain 167
Archetypes 133 Greater Form: Vampire 167
Archetypes 171
Demon 135
Themes 135 Werewolf 172
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Allies 135 Themes 172

Enemies 135 Allies 172
Web of Pain 135 Enemies 172
Greater Form: Demon 135 Web of Pain 172
Archetypes 139 Greater Form: Werewolf 172
Archetypes 177
Geist 140
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Themes 140 Save Your Generation 178

Allies 140
Enemies 140 Chapter Five: After-Market
Web of Pain 140 Accessories 181
Greater Form: Sin-Eater 140 General Considerations 181
Archetypes 144 What This Is (and Isn’t) 181
Hunter 145 Imports and Remixes 182
Themes 145 Mixology 182
Allies 145 Culture Shock 183
Enemies 145 Structure 187
Web of Pain 145 Cyberpunk 188
Greater Form: Hunter 146 Setting: Quiet Desperation 188

4 BLACK VANS
 Optional Rules: Dystopian Life 194 One Piece at a Time 264
Systems 199 DIY Ethos 264
Dark Era 201 Setting Examples 265
Setting: Horror Histories 201
Optional Rules: Living Historically 212
Appendix One:
Systems 212 New Conditions 268
High Fantasy 213 Awestruck (Persistent) 268
Catastrophic Glitch (Persistent) 268

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Setting: Ecosystems 213
Optional Rules: The Lives of Heroes 216 Charmed (Persistent) 268
Systems 225 Defiant 268
Post-Apocalypse 226 Doomed 269
Hungry (Persistent) 269

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Setting: How Did We Get Here? 226
Optional Rules: Life Among the Ruins 230 Major Glitch (Persistent) 269
Systems 236 Major Trauma (Persistent) 269
Minor Glitch 270
Space Opera 238
Minor Trauma 270
Setting: Humanity and the Void Between 238
Starving (Persistent) 270
Optional Rules: Distant Stars 243
Swooned 270
Systems 245
Superhero Emergence 252 Appendix Two: New Merits 271
Setting: Our Superpowered World 252
Optional Rules: Changes
Systems
253
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Appendix Three:
New Persistent Scars 272
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Table of Contents 5
 Dig Up Her
Bones

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The dream begins as it always does — with black vans. He and Mona have just returned from
Surge, a divey bar that features pool tables and weekend performances by local punk bands.
They’re both a little drunk, or maybe he only remembers it that way because everything
else in the dream is so fuzzy and indistinct. Except for Mona. Her gorgeous face is burned
into Rob’s memory.
She’d spiked up her blue mohawk, but they’d been dancing in a sweaty mosh pit for hours,
and it’s beginning to droop. Her eyeliner and black lipstick are both smeared, too. Her
eyes are golden and slit like a cat’s. They’re not contact lenses like most assume, but her
real eyes, just like Rob’s elongated canines aren’t a vampiric affectation but real teeth.

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Despite their fake IDs claiming they’re both 25, she’s 21 to his 30.
As they step onto the curb and the bus pulls away, she abruptly gives him a quick peck
on the lips and laughs. Rob can’t help but grin back. After a year on the run, they had
both needed tonight so damned much.
As they turn the corner, they see the four black vans parked across the street from the
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house, and suddenly the cheerful mood is gone. Wipers casually swipe away stray flecks of
sleet, and tailpipes exhale clouds of steam in the late autumn cold. One of them is rock-
ing back and forth like a heavy weight is throwing itself against the interior.
The house is dark, but the signs of forced entry are clear — the missing front door,
the broken windows, their host’s body sprawled face down on the front stoop in a pool
of his own blood.
Even as drunk as he is, Rob knows a fight they can’t win when he sees one. Four black
vans mean at least twenty agents, based on what they know of Nergalcorp’s protocols, and
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even if Radha and Marylou evened those odds somewhat, it still isn’t a winnable contest.
A quick glance in the other direction reveals four more black vans just down the street
— and those are just the ones the conspiracy doesn’t care if they see.
The trap is obvious to him, but not to Mona, who makes a sound at the back of her
throat, at once a human snarl of rage and a feline hiss.
“Mona, no!” Rob whispers, reaching out to place a warning hand on her shoulder.
Too slow. Her claws were already out, and she moves with a cheetah’s speed, closing the
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distance to the house in two heartbeats. The agents are waiting for her, breaking cover
from behind broken windows and decorative shrubs, but nothing can prepare a man for
the reality of Mona. Though they open fire with their pistols, none of the shots hit her
before she’s raked one across the eyes and another at the throat. Neither are fatal blows,
but those two won’t be putting up further resistance.
The real attack comes from one of the black vans, and the feathers of a tranquilizer
dart blossom from Mona’s back. Agents swarm her with nets, drag her away from the house
and towards the van closest to Rob.
The back doors of the van are open, two more agents waiting inside with handcuffs and
shackles. Mona is screaming his name. Soon she will be in the back of the van and the
doors will close, muffling her cries.
Rob is suddenly aware of a stranger standing next to him, a woman not much older than
Mona. She has brown eyes and wavy pink hair and she’s wearing a school uniform. All of
it is disheveled, dirty, desperate.
 “Please help me,” she says, hands lifted to him in supplication.
With a bang, the doors of the black van slam shut.

•••
Rob jolted awake and immediately knew something was wrong. He scrambled out of bed before
his conscious mind had time to identify the source of his apprehension, pulled the loaded

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revolver from under the bed, drew back the hammer, and pointed it at the shape that had
been lying in the bed next to him.
The intruder immediately sat up and put their hands up.
“Please don’t shoot!” A woman’s voice, trembling in fear but somehow familiar.
“How the fuck did you get into my bed?” Rob demanded.

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Conscious thought was coming online, now, but it asked more questions than it offered
answers. Nergalcorp’s experiments with introducing feline features into human volunteers
had given him a preternatural instinct for recognizing threats in his environment. In
twenty years on the run, he had never even given a sniper a clean shot, much less had
someone get into his home, his room, his goddamned bed without his noticing it.
“Your dream was a dead end. It was either come here or go back to Saint Margaret’s, and
I wasn’t sure I’d have another chance to escape.”
“Malleo ex Draconis?”
She nodded. “I’m a student teacher there.”
Rob relaxed fractionally. The demon-hunting cult was influential in Denver, but

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Minneapolis was well beyond their reach. He took a small step back and flipped on the light.
A woman in her early 20s with brown eyes, disheveled pink hair, and school uniform
shirt and skirt sat on his bed. He recognized her instantly as the stranger in his dream.
“I’m Helena, and I know you’re Rob,” she told him, eyes on the barrel of his gun. By way
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of explanation, she added, “I heard her screaming it at you when they took her.”
“You can travel in dreams?”
She nodded. “I jump from dreamer to dreamer. My guard fell asleep, and he dreamed of an
old lover, who was one of the ones who abducted your Mona. Everyone else in
your dream is dead, so you were my only exit point.”
Rob felt a stab of guilt at that. He had long suspected,
but the revelation was still painful.
He lowered the gun. “You’re in a new
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place. I’ll help you get on your

feet, at least.”
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INTRODUCTION::
INTRODUCTION

Driver

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It is a skill we learn early, the art of
inventing stories to explain away the fearful
scared strangeness of the world. Storytelling and
make-believe, like war and agriculture, are among
the arts of self-defense, and all of them are ways
of enclosing otherness and claiming ownership.
— William Kittredge

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The driver is at the center of every automobile’s design, and understandably so. The safe arrival
of the passengers and cargo is in her hands. The vehicle itself goes nowhere without her. Everything
she might need while driving is therefore placed within her reach — from the sound system and cli-
mate controls to the mirrors and seat adjustment levers. Moreover, while the car is the conveyance,
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the driver determines its destination.
The Storyteller is the driver of every Deviant: The Renegades chronicle. In the same way car
designers focus on the driver, Black Vans focuses on the Storyteller. It assists in plotting the course of
a chronicle from beginning to end and offers options that allow the Storyteller to adjust the mirrors,
turn on the wipers, and crank up the A/C by modifying the settings of the game to her troupe’s liking.

How to Use This Book

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This supplement for Deviant: The Renegades covers a wide range of topics. It requires the core Deviant
book, and we strongly recommend access to its other supplements: The Clades Companion, The Devoted
Companion, and Shallow Graves. The contents of this book are as follows:
Introduction: Driver discusses chronicle design and narrative techniques in the broadest terms — from
the logistics of venue and troupe make-up to different approaches to chronicle and chapter preparation
and execution.
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Chapter One: Manual digs deep into the Storytelling system’s inner workings and how to get the
most use out of it as a dramatic engine. It also explores Deviant-specific systems and offers ways to
modify the game’s mechanics to make them conform more closely to the Storyteller’s style and the
troupe’s preferences.
Chapter Two: Engine looks at Deviant’s narrative systems and discusses the ways a Storyteller
can use everything from character sheets to Touchstones to conspiracy systems to drive the
chronicle’s stories.
Chapter Three: Passengers offers a tool for quickly creating Baseline and Deviant characters
who can be dropped into the story at a moment’s notice.
Chapter Four: Models looks at parts of the Chronicles of Darkness that Deviant has avoided
addressing head-on in its core and first three supplements. It offers ways of including demons,
mages, vampires, and other occult creatures (and Remade derived from them) in a Deviant
chronicle — whether as a Storyteller character or a player’s character.

Introduction: Driver 9
 Chapter Five: After-Market Accessories takes Deviant out playdate of their own. Children are less likely to get bored and
of its familiar genre assumptions and default gameplay loop and interrupt if they have other kids to play with.
places the Broken in exotic settings. It also offers examples of
ways to alter Deviant systems like Variations, Scars, Instability,
Disadvantages
and conspiracies to fit into new genres, and includes new Merits, Venue-Dependent: Offline play requires a suitable, centrally
Forms, and other mechanics appropriate to those genres. located space to play in. This may be a non-issue on a college
campus with lots of common areas, or if someone lives in a

Logistics house with a big dining room table, but it can be a dealbreaker
if everyone lives in studio apartments or is scattered across a large

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geographic area (resulting in long commutes). A cross-country
Before a chronicle can even begin, it is important to decide move usually means that a player must drop out of the game
who is playing in it and how you will meet. — and can even end the chronicle prematurely, if the troupe is
already small and can’t readily find a replacement. The host must
Venue

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also take more care to make the space presentable. While friends
The circumstances under which gameplay takes place shape will forgive scattered toys in a household with children or a few
the way stories unfold and the tools troupes are likely to rely dishes in the sink, squalid or outright dangerous conditions at
upon when telling them. or around the gaming table can be a distraction from gameplay.
Limited Spotlight: Because all participants share a physical
Offline Tabletop space, offline play usually necessitates that only one person
talk at a time. Conversational turn-taking is facilitated by being
Digital options for running roleplaying games have been able to see one another, but players in larger troupes necessarily
around for decades — and play-by-mail games predate even enjoy a smaller share of the available spotlight time. It can favor
those. Despite this, many roleplaying rulebooks assume that

is, and for good reason.

Advantages
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the offline tabletop experience is the norm. For many, it still
players who speak up readily over those who prefer to consider
their words carefully — especially if the talkative players aren’t
self-aware enough to recognize that they’re hogging the table’s
time. This is a minimal issue in a troupe with three or four play-
ers, but at a table of six or more, even remotely conscientious
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Immediacy: Offline play has zero lag. Everyone can hear players may find it impossible to engage in lengthy, in-character
one another and see each other’s facial expressions and ges- conversations that don’t concern the rest of the cohort.
tures. If the setting of a scene gets confusing, it’s usually easy for
a Storyteller to quickly sketch it out on a whiteboard, wet erase
battle mat, or just a sheet of paper. Anything from gameboard
Real-Time Digital
pieces to custom-made figurines can represent characters in This category is really three. It includes video chat, voice-
action scenes when theater of the mind falls short. only, and text-based games that occur in real time. It must be
noted that digital play can also serve as a backup to offline
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Focus: Set in a physical environment at an established time,

offline play lends itself to intent focus on the game. Players are play, such as if some players are out of town (but still available
less likely to be distracted by side activities like video games or to play) or have sick members of their household (whose germs
phone calls, since these disrupt play for everyone. Unavoidable they don’t want to pass to their friends).
interruptions (such as rambunctious children or needy pets) Advantages
can usually be handled through brief pauses in gameplay so
that no one misses anything important. Game Logs: While a troupe that meets offline can record
sessions for later listening or may have players who take detailed
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Ambiance: Whether it’s mood lighting, props, or music,

notes as events unfold, digital play makes this as easy as hitting
a Storyteller can easily set the tone for a chapter in the
a record button or saving a text file. Storytellers and players
physical environment where gaming takes place. Players may
alike can mine game logs for details they may have missed
wear clothing meant to convey their characters, whether it’s
at the time. Players who review game logs are more likely to
a t-shirt witticism or full costume and makeup. LARPs take
notice subtle foreshadowing that might have slipped past an
this a step further, diminishing emphasis on mechanics to
offline group, while a Storyteller may spot things that she said
focus on the exploration of characters and their relationships
in passing that could hint at future plot twists.
with one another.
Less Geography: While time zones can still complicate meet-
Social Activity: A regular offline game is a social activity.
ing times, a player’s move needn’t end his participation in an
Participants can accompany it with all the other trappings of
ongoing chronicle, nor need place of residence preclude him
meatspace social gatherings, such as snacks, drinks, or even a
from joining one in the first place. Video chat, particularly, can
full meal before or after the game. Depending on the meeting
offer many of the benefits of offline play with few of the venue-
place, if multiple participants have children, game day can
specific limitations. Text-based games, meanwhile, are more
also serve as a playdate for the kids even as the adults enjoy a

10 BLACK VANS